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I am often asked why we use the more general Napa Valley appellation on our two Caymus Cabernets, instead of a more specific subregion such as Rutherford or even a single-vineyard designation. My thoughts on this subject might be considered controversial.

Something is up when, in the same week, the chef and wine director of a destination restaurant both pull out of the business they helped found. In the past few days, both Debbie Zachareas, who created an exciting wine list with more than 200 offerings by the glass, and Arnold Eric Wong, the chef who invented my favorite mussel dish, announced that they were leaving San Francisco's Bacar , citing differences with the new owners.

This is a perfect time to discuss older vintages. In a recent blog , Chuck Wagner writes about a wine's moment—which can be fleeting. In my report on the 1996 Cabernets , I was disappointed by how many of the wines showed, for various reasons.

I am in a rotten mood. Today is Valentine’s Day and I hate it. I have loathed this commercial celebration for as long as I can remember. Maybe it was because Heidi Hendrickson in the sixth grade didn’t accept my Valentine’s message.

Last week the Napa Valley Vintners association had a general meeting where we discussed the state of Napa Valley wines. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that after our business meeting, we would be hearing from Wine Spectator 's James Laube.

I am seeing wine bars in major cities, and what I am seeing, I like. In the past few days, I have been to two cool wine bars, one in Los Angeles and one in New York City, that are hip, fun and satisfying.

On Saturday night, I was invited to a dinner party here in Napa. All I was asked to bring was some wine. We'd be grilling meat, I was told, so I took a couple of huge, rich, massive, inky dark, ultraripe Cabernets in hefty supersized, barbell-weight bottles.

Sometimes I’ll be cruising along in a blind tasting of red Burgundies and a wine will throw me a curve ball. Aromatically, it is fresh and distinctive, with floral and spice notes (sandalwood comes to mind most often) along with the fruit.

When you decide how expensive a restaurant is, do you look at the final bill, which includes tax and tip, or at the price of an entrée? Or maybe the prices on the wine list? If you said the final bill, you are in the minority.

Last night for dinner, I opened a bottle of 2003 Calera Pinot Noir Mills Vineyard (92 points, $45). As I poured a glass, a couple of thoughts crossed my mind. Calera used to make one of the ripest styles of Pinot Noir in California, so much so that I once described them as ultraripe bordering on jammy.

I've heard for years about a wine's "moment." It's different than a wine's peak (which is very subjective). It's also different than a wine "opening up" over a period of time due to decanting or exposure to air in the glass.

Hello, my name is Eric Ripert, and I am the chef and owner of Le Bernardin restaurant in New York. I'm very excited to have the opportunity to write my own Wine Spectator guest blog, and look forward to sharing ideas with you throughout the next month.

Some months ago I made note of all the creatures I had encountered on Australian wine labels. I had been trawling through some low-priced wines, looking for good values, and had found in one tasting alone a blue-tongued lizard, penguins, cockatoos, pumas, sheep and yabbies.

What a foggy morning in Los Angeles today, not so much from the weather but from a slightly exaggerated evening last night. I had dinner at Sona (which is recent guest blogger David Myers ' restaurant) with L.

I wondered if my kids (now young adults) would ever embrace wine. Unlike me, they grew up in a wine culture, in Napa Valley, where wine is everywhere and everywhere we’ve traveled. While I hoped they would grow to appreciate the world’s most amazing beverage, I also harbored anxiety about what might happen if they liked it too much.

With the news today regarding Viña Errázuriz , a new front has been opened in the war on cellar contamination. South American wineries join California and France in having to deal with a problem that nobody wants.

Bernard Dugat is an artist whose medium is wine. Passionate, articulate and down to earth, he doesn’t rely on a lot of technique. Rather, his key to expressing the best from each terroir is old vines, moderate yields and long fermentations with whole clusters.

Brothers Frédéric and Daniel Coulon run the Paul Coulon & Fils estate in Châteauneuf-du-Pape (commonly referred to as Domaine de Beaurenard). I sat down with Frédéric in my office today—tempted by the vertical of the estate’s top red wine, their cuvée Boisrenard, that he brought.

Two 100-pointers for Brunello di Montalcino. The region is on a roll, both in Italy and abroad. As you know, my home is in Italy, so I spend a fair amount of time in Tuscany, and it never ceases to amaze me when I ride my bike or drive my sports car to Montalcino and gaze at the mountain of the medieval city.

Wine certainly has its own language. Some of the oddest prose can be found on the back of wine labels. Often the verbiage is mundane, canned copy that is useless and a waste of space and opportunity. Occasionally, though, it's useful and insightful and contributes to your knowledge of what's in the bottle.